Women’s Small Group Resources – Recommended Books

Description: Many women mistakenly equate this quality (Authentic Catholic womanhood) with biological motherhood. And yet, God has entrusted every woman – single or married, with or without children – with an important task: to bring spiritual life to the world around her, following the example of the Blessed Mother. In Full of Grace, you will discover five essential elements that will help you to deepen your relationship with God. By cultivating this essential relationship, you will be empowered to more fully embrace your God-given calling.

Recommended Meeting Time: 60-90 minutes

Number of Meetings: Can be tailored to meet the needs of the group (eight sessions are provided)

Description: The author’s background in college campus evangelization comes through loud and clear in this biblically rich and eminently practical study. Courageous Love takes seriously the fact that everyone is called to holiness, and offers sound, spiritual guidance to women of all ages and backgrounds.

Recommended Meeting Time: 60-90 minutes

Number of Meetings: Can be tailored to meet the needs of the group (eight sessions are provided)

Description: This Bible study explores how virtue can help women in their daily walks with the Lord and in everyday life. The author focuses on the cardinal virtues (fortitude, temperance, justice, and prudence) and the theological virtues (faith, hope, and love).

Recommended Meeting Time: 60-90 minutes

Number of Meetings: Can be tailored to meet the needs of the group (eight sessions are provided)

Description: This book inspires women to restore their commitment to their Creator and to their Christian identity. It helps them to answer the call that God has put on their lives. This insightful Bible study clearly identifies the characteristics that the Lord values, as seen through the examples of women in Scripture, and gives meaningful ways for women to bring these traits into their daily lives.

Recommended Meeting Time: 60-90 minutes

Number of Meetings: Can be tailored to meet the needs of the group (19 sessions are provided)

Website (includes podcasts to go with each chapter of the book):http://woman.catholicexchange.com/– Once you reach the Catholic Exchange website, click on “Today’s Catholic Woman” tab at the top of the page.– Next, search for Women of the Bible Podcast on this webpage.

Description: Hahn offers a fresh but deeply rooted perspective on the true meaning of marital love and its implications for a number of significant issues: natural family planning, contraception, infertility, abortion, sterilization, and miscarriage. She draws from Scripture and Church teachings as well as poignant personal experiences from dozens of families who share their stories. Their testimony will help you rediscover the path of prayer, sacrifice, and self-discipline that God intends for married couples–the path of life-giving love.

Recommended Meeting Time: 60-90 minutes

Number of Meetings: Can be tailored to meet the needs of the group (13 sessions are provided)

Description: As a young woman, Denise Roy seriously considered a cloistered religious life, but ultimately decided to forego the nun’s habit in favor of the crazy but joyful world of marriage and motherhood. Now a psychotherapist and mother of four, Roy shares spiritual tips in My Monastery Is a Minivan: 35 Stories from a Real Life, from Loyola Press. “Most of this book was written either in the middle of the night in my bathroom or in the middle of the day in our living room, where toys and soccer bags and an occasional kid surrounded me,” she notes. Roy says that it’s one thing to think and pray about forgiveness; it’s quite another matter to put it into daily practice as a parent. These personal anecdotes are humorous and heartfelt; many parents will applaud her wise decision to find spiritual wisdom in the quotidian realities of washing dishes and tripping over legos.

Recommended Meeting Time: 60-90 minutes

Number of Meetings: Can be tailored to meet the needs of the group (35 sessions are provided)

Women’s Small Group Programs

Women of Grace

The Women of Grace® Foundational Study Series is part of the Women of Grace® ministry to women. Women of Grace® is an outreach of Living His Life Abundantly® International, Inc. In his Letter to Women, Pope John Paul II writes, “…I am convinced that the secret of making speedy progress in achieving full respect for women and their identity…must first and foremost be won through an effective and intelligent campaign for the promotion of women, concentrating on all areas of woman’s life and beginning with a universal recognition of the dignity of woman.

It is to this end that Women of Grace® has been founded. Its mission is to affirm women in their dignity and vocation as daughters of God and in their gift of authentic femininity by exploring all aspects of the feminine person including her spirituality, psychology, emotional reality, and physical being. Through an effective and intelligent campaign, Women of Grace® promotes the dignity of woman, the grace of true womanhood, and woman’s fundamental call and mission in the world.

Women of Grace® conferences, retreats, study series, study groups, interactive website (www.womenofgrace.com), radio program, and Canticle Magazine: The Voice of Women of Grace comprise the multi-faceted strategy implemented to achieve its mission. A membership opportunity also exists for those women who are seeking a closer affiliation with each other and with the apostolate. Women participants are encouraged to become part of a “grassroots” Women of Grace® effort in their own parishes, communities, and geographic regions.

ENDOW (Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women) is a private juridic person of the Catholic Church, established in the Archdiocese of Denver. As a Catholic educational program, ENDOW brings women together to discover their God-given dignity and to understand their role in humanizing and transforming society. ENDOW utilizes small study groups, conferences and retreats to cultivate faith, fellowship and formation.

ENDOW provides women with a forum through which to explore and understand what it means to be a feminine person created in God’s image. As a basis for discovery, ENDOW promotes the New Feminism, which is defined by Pope John Paul II. The New Feminism recognizes and affirms the “true genius of women” and responds to our culture’s desperate need for an authentic feminine presence in every aspect of life and society.

MISSION To enable individuals to grow in their faith, deepen their commitment to and personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and then be a resource for them as they share that commitment with their parishes, dioceses and the world!